I think this is emblematic of Tony khans biggest flaw. He can’t pivot when things go awry. Kris gets injured whens she’s being built up to dethrone Jade. Let’s have Jade hold the title for a year while we wait for Kris.
Oh thunder rosa is injured let’s have an interim title and let’s wait 3 months to make the title holder official.
Oh Jamie’s injures to I can take the belt and not feud with anyone until jamie gets back.
No hate to him this is just a very obvious flaw that he should work to improve
See I hear this and I agree… to a point. There is more to it though
Let me put it a different way
When is the last time a woman in AEW made you care about their storyline through solid promo work? That to me is a big part of the problem. No one can talk unless you are Thunder Rosa or Britt Baker. This leads to flash in the pan moments but nothing with any legs.
Agree. No disrespect to TK, but he needs to eventually appoint a veteran female to head creative/writer who can see the women's division from a deeper perspective. He can still have the final say, but there's just no way that one person can have the energy and enthusiasm for so many storylines.
Honestly, because the women don't get intriguing storylines. All the cool wrestling in the world won't replace actual stories that draw fans in. It's AEWs biggest problem. Everything is so disjointed and all over the place, it feels almost like a wrestling simulator game.
Britt Baker was out there killing it for a while. They never brought anyone else up to her level after that.
Possibly. Ill watch any Jade match (squash or not), and I really liked the Nyla/Nightengale match, but the level of wrestling for most women just isn't there for me. A lot of sloppy execution and unnecessary time to set up spots that kills it for me.
>ll the cool wrestling in the world won't replace actual stories that draw fans in
Not to kick a division when it's down but the cool wrestling doesn't particularly happen in that division either more often than not
>Honestly, because the women don't get intriguing storylines.
You can have "intriguing story lines" all day long but at the end of the day those people have to get into a ring and perform. VERY few of them can do that.
I will still talk about the New Year Smash Street fight that Anna Jay, Tay, Bunny and Penelope Ford had as an amazing match. It was entertaining as hell but it is not the norm for the women's division. They are typically not very quick/agile, their moves have little to no impact and they botch moves that the men's division would call basic.
The athleticism isn't the same and it shows. Provide a lesser product, get a lesser reaction.
Shida, Jamie, Ruby, Toni, Stat, Athena, Nyla, Deeb, a healthy Rosa, and Martinez are all good-to-great in the ring, and Britt is capable when working with any of them. That’s more than enough to run the top of the division, with Skye, Starkz, TayJay, and Julia working in the lower/midcard as they learn and improve.
The live crowds can get hot for matches with any of that top level when they’re given proper time and build, and if they’re presented as consistently important I believe ratings will follow. It’s worth a shot, at least. Hell, look at all the buzz Skye Blue has gotten lately and she’s miles away from even being as good as Britt in the ring.
Buddy, in the history of wrestling, it's been shown that storylines and characters drive the product. The in ring shit, is honestly secondary at this point
Definitely agree. I watch RIHO I’ll never understand her being popular. As tiny as she is she moves slower than Keith Lee, she should be racing around the ring but instead it’s like she is in practice walking thru the match.
I think that each gal needs to master 5 moves, once they can do a running clothesline instead of putting the arm up waiting for someone to run into it then they can progress to something else. It’s painful watching how awful some of them attempt to execute basic moves.
They need to hire Mickey James or Serena to run them through the WCW power plant routine before they shove them down our throats. I mean it’s like some of them have never watched wrestling before. Make em watch 80’s matches to learn some basics.
I’d rather see an armbar for five minutes than watch 5 people stand on the outside waiting to catch someone off the top rope especially their teammates.
They’re not doing a great job of keeping her at a high level. Hayter had a really disappointing run. Should of had the OC type run. Most AEW storylines don’t matter though. Same guys are still featured each week no matter if they win their feuds or not. That won’t keep the audience engaged because nothing matters.
Yeah this has been an issue for a while, specifically with Cody and Jericho. It's like nothing any one else did ever mattered because they weren't allowed to not have a presence. I remember even thinking that Jericho still felt like Champion through most of Moxley's reign because you were more likely to feel Jericho's presence than Moxley's.
I completely agree. There's alot of rough booking ideas. The fact that you have Claudio, moxley and Danielson in a faction instead of being 3 of your main eventers is astounding to me.
Yea, but the show is built around the factions instead of the individuals. Kenny Omega shouldn't be in a trios, he's the best wrestler on the planet and should be treated as such. MJF and Adam Cole are a tag team, that's a shit show.
Kenny omega just had one of the biggest singles matches in the companies history and then had a main event singles match TONIGHT
Mjf/cole just had a title match and will end up in a title match in a month. Feuds need to exist besides “I’m better then you”
That’s not a shit show. A shit show would be 4 years of guys having singles matches to just prove who “the best wrestler” is
My thing with brit is her look. She's good on the mic but she's not believable. I'm supposed to think she can beat Kris statlander in a real fight? Of all the women on the roster kris stat, toni storm, shida, and jade Cargill are the only ones who LOOK like they can fight. Then again that's mostly an AEW problem
No. That's will forever be Darbys crutch. The reason he'll never be THE guy. He's awesome. I love Darby. The dude is amazing!! But he's soooooo soooo sooo tiny. His selling and work are believable, though. His psychology is as well. He gets his ass whopped every match and wins when he finds an opening or he just out stamina his opponent.
It's the booking IMO. The roster is solid as hell but the story's are weak, not enough in ring promos and they don't get enough time to really showcase their talent in the ring. No one gets invested in the story when it's all told through a bunch of pre taped segments and video packages. That in ring promo Ruby cut last week felt like such a breath of fresh air, we need more of that.
Also, both the OG vs Outcast storyline and waiting for Stat to come back and beat Jade had the whole division tied up in a holding pattern most of this year. That really crushed the momentum the division had coming out of 2022.
I think if you just let them go out there and gave them the time to really showcase what they can do in longer matches and cut some in ring promos in front of the crowd, people would eventually take note and start getting invested. Until that risk is taken, nothing will change.
It’s because they do the absolute *bare minimum* to create interesting feuds and stories for the ladies. Imagine MJF if he never got to cut promos and instead just had random matches with random opponents, with little to no story behind them, or did the same run in angle every week on a seemingly never ending loop. How over would he be then?
In the 3+ years of AEW they’ve managed to create ONE truly decent women’s rivalry, between Britt Baker and Thunder Rosa and…that’s it. Everyone else has been fed scraps. They’re given the odd street fight in which to shine and then promptly forgotten about again. Women occasionally manage to get over organically, in spite of their lacklustre booking, just through sheer ability (like Jamie Hayter) or through strength of personality (like Willow). But even then their crowd reactions aren’t capitalised on and they aren’t utilised to their full potential. And people wonder why Mercedes was reluctant to sign with AEW!
Sadly, unless the women’s division is completely overhauled and booked by a totally new team, I have no hope of things improving any time soon, if ever.
(ETA: I did like Shida vs. Deeb. That showed that they *can* do good rivalries that don’t revolve around Britt or the title, when they want to.)
Idk on what planet you can say Jamie wasn’t used to her full potential when they gave her the title and were giving her main events
She got hurt, can’t blame Tony for that
What proper singles feud did she have in her title reign? She was bundled in with Britt into the Outcasts stuff, but she was just another person in that feud, it never revolved around *her*. In fact, Britt was arguably the centre of that feud (as usual), typically being the one left standing tall at the end of those multiple beatdown/run-in segments that seemed to end every women’s Dynamite match for weeks on end.
Jamie had a couple of great matches in her reign vs. the likes of Shida and Sakura, but again, that was completely down to her (and the other ladies) and had nothing to do with any proper storytelling. They could’ve told a multi-week story of Shida feeling undervalued and supplanted in the division by Jamie, but no, they just had a match, Hayter won and that was it. And that was the story of her reign.
The main driving force behind the feud was Toni/Jamie. But the outcasts started the night after Revolution and Jamie was hurt before DON. It was started off a saraya/Jamie/ruby triple threat. There wasn’t time for a “proper” singles feud if you’re arbitrarily saying Toni/Jamie wasn’t a singles feud.
It was literally her only feud before she got hurt
Pretending like Jamie hasn’t been the main character of the feud is completely dishonest. Jamie had more matches then britt did against the girls
The moves have very little impact, the speed/agility is not there and there are obvious botches all the time. If they had their own show it probably wouldnt be noticeable but when you're on the same show as the top male competitors in the world ot sticks out like a sore thumb.
Also the disparity between the ability of the top women and lower card is huge and its hard to suspend belief in some of it while watching.
Then we get to the booking which is terrible and it compounds upon itself.
I'll probably get downvoted but I've never seen anyone give a single shit about women's wrestling unless it was on this sub. My friends and co-workers who watch wrestling don't seem to care, ratings shows people don't seem to care, and that's just how it has been.
Yep. And I'm sorry but it's not because of the lack of *stories* people in this thread keep complaining about. It's because the vast majority of the women are just not fun to watch in the ring.
This x100000. My best friends girlfriend hangs with us for almost every wrestling pay per view and has become a fan.. even she doesn’t enjoy 99.999% of the women’s matches.. and she’s obviously not sexist lmao. I’m sorry but 80% of women’s wrestling matches are just plain out bad and inferior. Debate the wall.
NXT's womens division a few years ago (when they still had Rhea Ripley, Io Shirai, Bianca Belair etc) was my favourite thing in the wrestling world. Womens wrestling can be amazing, it just usually isn't in AEW
At the start of Dynamite women were actually performing pretty well and ''Riho is a monster draw!'' was a meme for a while.
...But they didn't really built on it and slowly people were trained not to care over women's wrestling as for the first 6 months, the only woman who got frequent promo time was Brandi Rhodes.
The attempt to make Brandi a top star in the women’s division and form the nightmare collective, truly hobbled the division right out the gate. But it wasn’t helped by frequent injuries, limited non-Joshi top-tier talent available for signing, and the inexperience of other top female stars like Baker or Swole. Shida, Stat, Riho, Nyla, and eventually Deeb and Thunder Rosa were left to do the heavy lifting. But both Stat and Rosa were frequently injured. Kenny Omega’s attempts to use his slow-burn story style when helping to book wrestlers with limited exposure or fanbases also didn’t give the division the running start it needed. Nor did holding a mostly unseen tag-team tournament that was won by Diamante, a committed worker, and Ivelisse, who sabotaged her own AEW career, that was not followed up by a tag-team title. Instead we got the TBS belt that failed to make an impact once Jade’s streak went on too long and Tony refused to pivot away from his plans for Stat.
The resulting combination of poor booking and bad luck has left the women’s division constantly saddled by with snarky or bad faith criticism, that overshadow both legitimate concerns and attempts to improve the situation.
>i think Jades title run was a great success and kicked statlander off to the hot start she deserved.
Kris would have had a hot start regardless if Jade went 10-0 or 20-0 if Kris wouldn't have gotten injured. She didn't need to keep it to 60-0. Her wrestling skills and mic skills are low/mid AT BEST.
She didnt need to but she did and jades career is much better off now. Jade is clearly set up to be a big star. She needed reps. She got reps. She got thrown in the deep end. She delivered. Shes not the best wrestler on the roster but you cant deny that she put in the work to consistently improve and do the best she could with the squash matches she was given. She was made champion way before she was ready, but by the end of her reign she very much deserved the title.
I don't think she did deserve the title at any point during her run. She undeniably improved, and quite quickly, but that's not what should choose a champion. There should always been an argument that the champion is one of the best in their division. Jade was never at that level, and many more deserving women were fed to her in that time for no reason. I get that Jade has a great look and a presence about her, I legitimately like Jade as a feature on the show. She never should have won that championship, and her undefeated streak should have ended in the TBS title tournament.
Actual skill is extremely relevant. A champion should be be someone who’s matches people look forward to. It’s like a martial arts movie, if the actors don’t look like they have skill but you’re calling them a master it’s going to detract from the enjoyment. If someone doesn’t look like they are a skilled wrestler but you’re calling them a champion it’s going to detract.
I know throwing money at the problem is rarely the solution but TK's immense reservation in signing ex-WWE women's wrestlers compared to male wrestlers after WWE's massive releases in 2020 and 2021 seemed like a miss opportunity.
He signed over a dozen fired male wrestlers(and not all of them stars) but I think as far the women were concerned it was just Serena and Ruby.
Like my man, was Mickie James too expensive?
Isn't that also where he got Storm, Athena, Shafir, and Tay Melo? 6 performers total of varying experience and styles. I know Storm asked for her release but they still moved on her during that time. Also Mercedes Martinez while not signed immediately was working for them after her release too.
As I recall Mickie wanted Impact because she wants to end things there. Kairi chose returning to Japan. Outside of the two of them and Deonna Purrazo I can't think of too many names WWE released that they would have benefitted from signing. Anyone like Sara Logan probably would have just been fed to Jade and forgotten about anyway.
I wonder if wwe has the same problem. I Britt vs Hayter would've popped a rating, but I can't think of much else. Injuries have been a problem too. The outcast started cold, but as soon as it started to pick up Hayter got hurt
The most compelling female story right now in any major promotion is Athena's ROH run which Tony Khan is booking.
The problem is that it's almost impossible to duplicate that in AEW or WWE since ROH is literally built around Athena. There is too much male talent in WWE and AEW for them to build a show around one woman.
20+ years of western wrestling either not having wonens wrestling or treating it like a sideshow with a sprinkle of womens wrestling fanbase being insanely obnoxious and turning people away from it
At the risk of sounding like a sexist pig, women's wrestling just doesn't do it for me. It has always come across as slow and overly scripted to me. Today's ladies are much more athletic and the matches are a lot better than they used to be, but it's still just not my cup of tea.
The wrestling skill level just isn’t the same. And it’s obvious that TK doesn’t like women’s wrestling and only even has them on the roster because he has to.
Of I remember correct, it was Kenny who pushed the women's division bringing the Japanese wrestlers. So you may have a point about how TK views that division.
I’ve read a lot of similar posts but there’s a lot of talented women regardless of experience - from Athena to Deeb to Shida and Diamante to Nyla to work with the greener undercard. Removing your developmental TV is bad for the women and men and it shows.
I mean that's fine but I'm pretty over that type of match and, judging by the ratings, I'm not alone. I'm not wasting time watching training matches on tv. I think they should bring back a YouTube show for that kind of thing.
I think we may be overcomplicating things by delving into booking, star power, story lines etc.
We just need to look at other sports comparisons to understand why. The WNBA receives a fraction of the viewership that the NBA does. The same applies to the majority of sports, including soccer, boxing, baseball, cricket etc.
The reality is, men's divisions in sports are often higher level from a competitive perspective, and thus attract much higher viewership. Look at Omega vs Osprey recently. How often do we see women's matches of the same calibre?
This is not a dig in any way, just pointing out the obvious reality.
It’s funny, I never cared about what other people besides myself were watching. I always felt like if it entertained me, that’s all that matters to me. I know it sounds extremely self-centered, but I never look at something on TV like a mark and think “gee willikers, I like this but I wonder if little Sally in Buttfucky, Kentucky will be into this Jon Moxley bloodbath.”
the women's division is **badly** booked.
Impact's Knockouts division is booked better than AEW's women's division (and that's not even that bad of an insult because the knockouts division is the best booked women's division on American television. it just is. people can go on and on about how "the fed has improved", but the booking of the women in the fed HAS NOT. AT ALL.)
It's always this repetitive shit that goes on forever, between the last couple months of Britt's titel reign and Jade's title reign and the Outcasts having the same match with two of the same 4 girls every week.
Is this because there are too many injuries? probably, and we know this guy cannot book on the fly from 2022.
oh, and the joshi talent, who were the best thing in the division for the first 2 years, were only on Dark for the most part, and now they go back to Japan every other week because they actually have things for them to do there.
...and there are apparently two women in the creative team now, and this shit STILL isn't fixed.
>Impact's Knockouts division is booked better than AEW's women's division (and that's not even that bad of an insult because the knockouts division is the best booked women's division on American television. it just is. people can go on and on about how "the fed has improved", but the booking of the women in the fed HAS NOT. AT ALL.)
I think we need to stop the myth of the Impact's Knockouts division. It is something that is repeated by the IWC, who couldn't tell you what is even happening on Impact since they never watch the show. So how the hell do they know what is happening on Impact when no one watches the show?
No one can tell you one great story from that division since Tessa Blanchard's run as the heavyweight champ like 4-5 years ago. Do you ever see any post on r/SquaredCircle about the Impact women? Do you ever see anyone discuss some amazing storyline they saw on Impact? No. So whatever they are doing is not attracting ANY attention. Jordynne Grace used to constantly complain that wrestling fans just didn't give a shit about what they were doing in Impact. Good booking means getting fans to give a shit about the stories and wrestlers. It means growing your business.
Impact's ratings are also non-existent and are usually outside the top 150 for their night. They usually average around 80-90k. Now you can say, well it's AXS TV and no one can find it. That is true, but Impact was drawing 180k when they first were on AXS TV a few years ago. So that audience watched before and left. So this "great" Impact booking of the women is not drawing anyone to Impact or making them money. They are not creating any wrestlers that people care about. And that is all that matters in wrestling. Is there any female wrestler that is making people watch Impact? No, and the numbers back that up.
Funny thing is the head writer of Impact, Jimmy Jacobs, now works for AEW. So the guy writing all these great storylines for the Impact women, that no one can even name or tell you about, is now in AEW.
I don't give a shit about ratings. I don't give a shit about money. The fed draws everybody and they SUCK.
I'm talking about what doesn't annoy me when i watch it.
Mickie James's last rodeo didn't annoy me when i watched it....too bad she got injured.
The complete lack of care of the division, not only a lack of matches but stories or characters.
TK seems to not care
One of the best wrestlers from Stardom Utami Hayashishita is currently in the US, and CGW got her on a show, but it doesn't seem AEW has tried.
AEW has had every chance to build a solid division, but they just don't put in the effort.
Having someone from Stardom in a 1-off show doesn't build your division. It's great for drawing money from fans already aware of the wrestler or product which is why Forbidden Door is a huge money maker. You mentioned stories and character, you can't tell that with someone just temporarily here, and if you can fans will be disappointed when she disappears back to Japan.
I'm shocked women's wrestling is still so bad (most of the time), in spite of the improved athleticism. AJPW had great female wrestling in the 80s/90s. Generalizing of course, but women are more flexible (helpful with making submissions look great) and better dancers (choreography), and gymnast (high flying) not sure why it doesn't translate in the ring. I think it might be their physicality is lacking, striking always looks horrible to me. I think they try to mimic US mens wrestling when they should be working on their own unique style or more lucha.
The women in aew on average are just not that good compared to the men and that's cause alot of the men are some of the greatest in the world at working matches and Half the women's roster just started wrestling sometime within the last 5 years or so. This makes the matches take a massive dip in quality compared to their male counterparts.
Add in that aew's programming in general is already kinda wonky in how it presents alot of its talent (ricky starks being in a feud with jay white and juice Robinson and NOT cutting a promo for example), so the women who can talk don't get to, women in general being shown nothing but apathy by tk, and a multitude of key figures getting injured at the worst possible times, and this all became a perfect storm that imploded the women's division multiple times now
lower quality matches, tonight you had Britt and Ruby, two of the better in ring performers and it was still a very choppy match with important moves missed and instances where they're unnaturally waiting for each other.
I have been called sexistic for stating this, which I find unfair because it's a matter of personal preference, but women's wrestling just doesn't do it for me. I don't like to watch women fight or pretending to fight. I assume that I'm not the only one.
Wrestlers don't need to know how to kick someone's ass. They just need to LOOK like they can kick someone's ass. Britt doesn't have that look. She's charming as hell, though
The outcast story sucks, and with Hayter’s injury it’s stuck in purgatory until she comes back because TK can’t pivot.
Beyond that, they need more time. We need more Riho, Shida, Rose, Tay Conti when she’s back, etc. Not too long ago women were main eventing Dynamite. It can be done.
Downvote if you want but it’s the same reason people don’t watch women’s sports as much as the men: the athleticism isn’t the same and leads to a less entertaining product.
Very rarely will a women’s feud get to a level where people want to watch a match regardless of the entertainment value within it, so it will just never be as popular.
Bad booking and bad matches. Some of their women’s wrestlers are just not up to standards. Not to mention the good ones hardly ever wrestle. Riho, Shida, Bunny, always fucking deliver but I feel like they’re never on there.
It’s funny reading all of the excuses. The fact is people just don’t care about women’s wrestling. They just don’t. Just like the WNBA. Even lingerie football couldn’t draw a dime.
Is anybody really surprised that the biggest women wrestling stars are women who are not wrestlers? Sable, Sunny, Torrie, etc. It is what it is. Stop making up excuses.
I have no idea who Taya Valkrye, Lady Frost, Willow Nightingale etc are because I know nothing about them besides some people seemed to like them on promotions nobody watches and AEW doesn't fill in the blanks.
All these people making idiotic comments about “people dont like women’s wrestling” clearly forgot that year and a half when Becky Lynch was the most popular wrestler in the world (of ANY gender). People care about what you give them a reason to care about. TK has never shown much interest in building up his women’s division with good storylines and lots of exposure. Ive still NEVER seen a TV episode with more than one women’s match.
All the added drama and bullying towards Rosa certainly soured my view of certain women talent. Especially when the booking puts so much emphasis on the likes of The Outcasts and DMD. The storyline whilst having talented people involved has meandered in the least interesting way possible. And without other female talent on the card for a Dynamite you see a really for me at least uninteresting angle that has dragged on for way too long.
The outcasts have been a HUGE disappointment for me. It should have been this giant war leading to a women blood and guts match. But instead it just limps along never going anywhere.
I don’t think you can attribute it to the talent or the booking, because it’s not just a problem in AEW. WWE viewership has plummeted for women’s matches weekly for several years now. AEWs audience skews much more male, and it just doesn’t seem like men are as invested in the women’s matches.
Yeah show placement is a big reason, that last half seems like it's always losing viewers no matter who is there usually and they continue to drop into the main event. Some main events have done ok though. Seems like when they have aired earlier in the show they have performed fine. I think the main story has run so long without progression also hurts, but that's not limited to women though.
It’s kind of hard to care about the womens division or be as interested in it as the men’s when they get 3 matches o we 5 hours now of television and that doesn’t include ROH.
We get 1 match per show, maybe a backstage, on stage or in ring interview/promo which usually gets interrupted and what I think they consider they’re biggest story with the women is the Outcasts and that is the same repetitive stuff, they beat up on someone and either someone comes to help and they get beaten down too or a couple of them come down then they run away, nothing has progressed at all.
Skye Blue, Willow, Hikaru Shida, Riho and Britt should all be storming the ring for each others matches.
Bully Ray said it perfectly, if you’re a face getting beat down and no one comes out to help, who really is your friend and why don’t they come out?
That’s not the exact quote but it was something along those lines.
I feel like AEW needs to make the women's roster bigger. I was watching Statlanders match last Collision episode. And.... it just felt... kinda stale. You can even tell by the crowd's reaction.
Statlander just beat Jade's streak. It should be a big deal...but, just feels like AEW is not putting the effort that WWE is doing for their women's division.
They’re usually put in a poor cooldown time slot before the main event and they tend to get less actual storyline build to make the fans care.
AEW has to do the stuff like we’re seeing tonight with vignettes, pretaped activites, backstage interactions, or just promos with the women.
The big problem with the women’s division is outside the two belts, the rest of the division feels inconsequential. We haven’t been given a substantial storyline in the division that didn’t have a title around it. It’s just the champion and the revolving door of who’s next in line to challenge for it that gets any big attention given to it, and once they’re no longer challenging they just fall by the wayside.
It's likely a combination of several factors.
American pro wrestling is largely based on a morality axis for drama. Women don't get as many stories or TV time because there are fewer women than men performers. So their stories are simpler, shorter. Their promo time is less, their angles are weaker, their ring time is less.
And there you have a self-fulfilling prophecy of mediocrity.
People think this or that female performer is cool. Or cuts a figure as they say in the entertainment industry. But that doesn't mean they really want to listen to their promos or watch a 45-minute match with Willow and Serena Deeb.
The overlap of marks that think Riho is so awesome is pretty small compared to the general audience that see a 90 lbs woman with doilies on her wrists & wearing a frilly dress. And she can't speak English.
Realistically, the audience interested in that content is a subset of an already small niche audience wanting to see Jon Moxley stabbed by chopsticks.
It's a niche of niche. Whether or not that is fashionable to admit on today's internet wrestling mark-centric fan base.
AEW barely get 900k viewers for their flagship. And they ain't interested in Jamie Hayter vs. Ruby Soho.
You think there are 2-3million potential viewers out there that just need to see more Emi Sakura or Madison Rayne to change their minds?
Get realistic.
Women in sports (and other workplaces too) are still being underestimated by a large part of the population. Some fans probably boycott on purpose because they are bigoted. Either because they have internalized certain beliefs about gender roles or because they are black pilled or whatever else. These stuff don't change from day to day regardless of the effort that has been put on recently by all the promotions.
Wrestling doesn't take place in a bubble. Politics and culture affect it a lot.
This might be a bit controversial, but I have always found the women's matches a bit sloppy and not perfectly time. In some cases, they're engaging. Other times, it looks slow because they look like they have to prepare their moves. If I get downvoted for this, then go ahead.
Why isn't women soccer as popular as male? Why isn't WNBA as popular as the NBA? It's because they have a low number of female fan. Women don't really watch Pro Wrestling. The ones that do are far and few. The small number of female wrestling fans don't even watch the women. ... now the real question is why aren't male pornstarts paid as much as the female ones?
>Why isn't women soccer as popular as male?
Maybe it's not in the US (ironic given that USWNT is the most successful national football team in the women's game), but over here in Europe women's football has been experiencing a large boom in popularity as of late. Last year's European championship has [broken records](https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/37631528/record-breaking-2022-women-euro-watched-365-million-globally) both in crowd attendance and in TV viewership, and this year even the women's champions league final has managed to sell out [for the first time ever](https://theathletic.com/4523336/2023/05/16/womens-champions-league-final-sold-out/)! But I digress.
There might be a growing interrest, bur are you kidding me? Womens soccer is NOWHERE near the popularity of mens in Europe. A few games with high attendence won‘t change that. Look at the average numbers of league attandence and viewers in Europe.
No one's cares about soccer in the US!! I have friends that are into soccer and it's just weird. Here in America we cheer for teams because we have a connection to the city. Cheering for a city in a country that you've never even been too os odd to begin with. It's 4th most loved sport. Hockey is more popular
this is a weird take. lots of people here in america cheer for sports teams centered in places they aren't from. do you think every yankees fan has been to nyc or every pats fan to boston? what about in college sports, do you assume people only cheer for schools they've attended?
soccer is the most popular sport on the global level, and even though it's not huge in the u.s. it is still growing its viewership year over year. there are plenty of people that care about soccer and that like watching it. they aren't weird for liking it as a sport anymore than someone is weird for liking football or baseball or pro wrestling. just because you don't like it doesn't mean no one else does.
It's a combination of the women not getting interesting stories and audience apathy towards women wrestlers in general. Alot the super vocal support the women get online like on Twitter has not translated to real life.
People dont want to hear this but They’re just boring. The best womens division ive seen was the knockouts in TNA, that shit was one of the better parts if the show, they just had so many colorful characters and stories.
I would also say Lucha Underground's women's division was great. But they had actual character development and matches that were high stakes and more than 1 match per episode.
I watched the NWA Powerr PPV last year (or the year before) and the surprising thing was some of the best matches featured women who were AEW talent or regularly appeared on AEW (Leyla Hirsch, Red Velvet and Kylynn King). I loved Kylynn King but god am I glad she got out of AEW and seems to be doing great in TNA.
I am one of those rare women who grew up watching wrestling l, got my husband into wrestling and watch women sports. I must be a unicorn or something.
Because women's wrestling is boring. There are very, very, and I mean very few female wrestlers who are entertaining. I'll give credit where credit is due and say that Rhea Ripley is one of those women.
TK doesn’t book compelling matches or build the women up at all. The only women to get over are the ones who do it all themselves. They also put the match in the dead zone (before the main event) and the crowd is either going to the bathroom or folks at home are probably taking care of things to not miss the main event.
There’s no effort. No build. And it’s just sad at this point.
Because wrestling, especially the WWE, had conditioned fans for so many years that women matches are the "toilet break" of the show. They were viewed less important than all the other stuff on the show, and I think women's wrestling has always struggled to break away from that stigma that so many wrestling fans were conditioned to believe.
How do you rectify women's wrestling and make it seem just as important as men's wrestling? Feature them more on television. Give them meaningful stories that wrestling fans can sink their teeth into and enjoy. Feature them in Blood & Guts matches and Street Fights.
It's a massive work in progress, but there has been effort made into making women's wrestling more important.
It's controversial and I know most people will say it's not true... And I am going to get heat for it but...
Even after the Women's Revolution in wrestling, a good portion of fans still want hot ones over talented ones. And that's with every wrestling promotion not just WWE. So when a women'd match come featuring a women they don't necessarily see as "good looking" they change the channel/Skip it.
It's the fault of fans mindset, the women themselves are doing their best to put on the best matches possible.
I think it’s more because the women’s matches are throwaway. And what I mean is it’s just random matches that don’t impact storylines or feuds. Like currently, not a single woman has a storyline in aew. Stat is tbs champ without a feud, Toni is world champ without a feud. No other female has a feud, angle or promo time. It’s hard to get ppl to tune into a match that has zero impact.
They're usually booked in the dead zone right before the main event. I think whatever they put in that spot always has a drop, so TK books the women's match their since they're lowest on his priority list.
It’s a lot of things wrong that really needs to be addressed. Really don’t know how many views they lost but just going by what I see. People are custom to what they see most of the time. Like a cast or whatever I been arguing that aew needs some type of split brand split even if it’s an soft one. Also I feel aew needs highlight the main stars way more. When Jamie wasn’t hurt 8 out of 10 she should be on every dynamite even if was a match,tag,on commentary or even a manger if she showing signs she has a good fan base that’s goin stick keep her gulled on tv,it’s no damn reason why Athena is RoH and jade she has a great following, I love her but even with her wrestling being iffy at times and maybe reasons people might tune off, i barely seen any people talk about her promo game. Less wresting and showing more of character side. I’m just using these examples not even getting to Britt or thunder. Plus you need more intriguing storylines for the women.
Lack of investment from AEW Creative.. The talent is there. They just need to be allowed to be as gritty and bloody as the men are instead of being treated like a caricature of what the men do
1: People who in general hate women
2: Women not getting proper storylines
3: Women overall (IN MY OPINION) being worse than the men. Not based on gender but their best star (Jamie Hayter) isn't comparable to the best men's star (Kenny Omega). They tend to not deliver as often, although again this is a booking issue. There are a lot of great women's talents, but they don't have as much time to shine as the men do.
4: The matches being so short that nobody cares and they go for a piss break
5: The placement usually never being important and therefore skippable
Because they don't have many women in AEW who can actually wrassle. Thst brit v ruby match tonight, for example. It was slow and sloppy the whole way through.
The problem, two champions that never should have been champions and not pushing the right talent.
Neither Britt Baker or Jade Cargill deserved the titles they had. They are the worst the woman's roster has to offer and were given title runs that were pretty much exactly the same.
Both won nefariously and kept the title due to being given matches against the jobber that never stood a chance. Why, simply because they could not pull off a match against anyone with even a little talent. Jades run only lasted as long as it did because Statlander was hurt and bakers reign was only pushed until her boyfriend Adam Cole got signed. Don't believe me about Baker, go back and watch her treatment before Cole signed and after, her push died and the minute he signed
Recently, woman like Skye Blue and others that are far more talented are getting some time but until the current storyline has run it's course, there will still be road blocks and matches no one wants to see
TK is a real genius for the most part but when it comes to the woman's side of things, who ever is helping him is either clueless too or they just don't have faith in the current woman's roster.
What could hell is that a few who have been injured and out may be back sooner than later and they could help a ton
Most of women’s wrestling fans are gay men or women and a lot us exist it’s just aew appeals to a more male audience and doesn’t make the effort to appeal to this audience
Viewers have been conditioned over decades to believe women's wrestling is a bathroom break, and AEW has unfortunately fed that perception through their booking.
They just aren't as good of athletes.
And their impacts just aren't as hard.
Downvote me all you want, but it's true.
Women's matches are like 50-75% of the intensity of the men's.
And there is nothing wrong with that. They are just built differently. But many people take the opportunity of a less aggressive match to have a piss break.
Well lets be honest here.
1. Most of the female wrestlers are botch machines.
2. They don't perform to the level of their male counterparts in a lot of situations.
3. There is no consistent storytelling what so ever.
4. Jade has 50 absolutely terrible squash matches in a row, and her defenses were against jobbers who didn't help her look even half decent. And having that forced down your throat ruins the taste of female wrestling.
5. The Outcasts are a shitty low budget knock off of NWO.
One problem is they don’t hype it up as much as some unknown (in the USA) Japanese wrestler. There are plenty of talented female wrestlers, but they are not given enough time or storylines or enthusiasm from announcers.
Historically, women have been handcuffed in their matches. People have been conditioned to consider women’s matches the “bathroom break” not realizing that the women in AEW are legit badasses in the ring. You really have to blame the brainwashing that took place prior to AEW.
The booking is bad, and some of the women could probably just use a bit more ring time. I don't really see it as being a fault of the wrestlers themselves. Their booking is inconsistent to put it nicely, and we really just haven't been given much to care about.
It's because the women in AEW, for the most part, have no real direction as far as how they're being built. The women are booked as if Tony and his writing staff just want to get their matches out of the way but also don't want to stoop as low as the Divas era. I heavily dislike AEW, but there's still a part of me that's holding out hope that, if they got their shit together, they could put on a genuinely good show, top to bottom. There's more to the women's division than Britt Baker.
What is the intriguing storyline going on with women?
They treat women as set dressing.
It's like there's a quota that needs to be filled.
Nothing more, nothing less.
What are they doing to make people care about any of these women?
I was at forbidden door and as soon as the women’s match happened with Toni storm everyone went to the washroom and the lineup was almost around the arena lol
The talent is there, but they aren't giving compelling stories or opportunities to get their characters over in a meaningful way. Most of the feuds feel disjointed and uninspired, and the title programs are often nothing more than random open challenges or booked on the fly. I think mediocre storytelling is a problem with AEW as a whole at the moment, but the women get it worse than the dudes.
People were high on Baker when she started gaining momentum as a heel followed by her championship run. She got significant promo time and managed to get herself over. Compelling stories are essential, but giving more women opportunities to connect with viewers by letting us know who they are, what their ambitions are, etc. could be a good start. Skye Blue is gaining momentum as a babyface, but we haven't even seen a video package that adds some layers to her character.
I look at Dynamite ratings every week and it's rare to see a quarter with growth. It's a concern of mine since I really like the product. Not sure the women are drawing any worse then the men unless you have some data to back it up.
Honestly because in comparison to WWE, AEWs roster is very green in the ring. That and I feel the storytelling is so spastic that no one has any attachment to any characters. Their women’s division is in dire straits
It’s kinda the same issue with most American wrestling company’s. They don’t give the women enough time to build characters or a solid story, and the unpopular opinion women wrestling just isn’t all that popular in the states unless is Unfathomably horny dudes.
This is one of the only wins I’d ever give to WWE and that (only in the past decade of course) their women’s matches and storyline’s have been on point. Hope AEW can smash them on that front too eventually
I can understand if the women's devision isn't your preference (like some people don't like big-men) but to turn the channel when it's a women's match seems weird to me. I have been really enjoying the Outkasts storyline.
all this women's division needs is AJ and Priscilla.
Delete anyone you want from the mix.
You put either of those two on and I'm not changing the channel.
They aren't that good. I try to give them a chance in both places but they just aren't good for the most part. You have your good ones for sure. But for the most part the matches just aren't fun to me anyway.
To be clear: I enjoy Women's wrestling. I want to see more Nyla, Shida, Deeb etc.
But...the majority of people arent there to watch women's sports period. Women's wrestling (not Sable and the like) have only drawn for a total of a year (and not a year straight) in the past 30 years in North America.
Becky, and then Sasha & Bailey, drew for brief amounts of time. There was a time when Baker and Cargill managed to maintain viewers or slightly improve. That time is over for all the people mentioned.
People can say storylines, sure that's part of it. But IMHO, it's simply a fact that North American audiences don't support women's sports, consistently, in any great numbers. So it's a big, unfair, up hill battle.
Because the roster is shallow, there's no upward trajectory of long time wrestlers like Anna Jay, Penelope Ford, The Bunny, Julia Hart, etc. Some of these are for obvious out of ring reasons, like Tay Conti pregnancy and Penelope's situation, but they had PLENTY of time before that. Aside from a short-lived Skye Blue shocking upset, it's just been the Britt & Jade show for the better part of 2 years. Even Jamie Hayter's entire title Reign was kind of boring because it was so tied into Britt.. The long Statlander absences haven't helped either...
Then you also have the fact that it's more legit pro wrestling than it was in the Diva days when it was about sex rather than the sport. Not saying it's a change for the worse because it's definitely more entertaining and respectful now, but we all know sex sells and coomers gonna coom.
They've given the women very few story lines. The ones they do give them get drug on forever.
They don't ever change the main event scene from being Britt and someone. Even when Hayter was champion, they turned the focus to Britt.
They kept the title on Jade way too long because they were just waiting on Statlander. It basically took one title out of the scene for a very long time.
There is a large chunk of the roster who just randomly get thrown into matches, never featured or given promos, and give me no reason to invest.
The announce team doesn't even feel the same for the women's matches. It seems like they are just going through the motions. It also feels like this is the time they push a ton of advertisements for other shows, matches later that night, etc...
Because TK doesn't care about women's wrestling, and since he doesn't care, the fans don't care. The division is about half good, half shitters as well.
If you insist that women 99% of the time only get one match on your main show people won’t care. You can’t condition fans that way. Especially if you don’t allow the division to grow beyond either Britt Baker or Outcasts. There’s a lot of talented women not being booked thanks to the loss of Dark/Elevation. Not everyone tunes into ROH either. When was the last time Athena was on Dynamite? I know she does a lot of work in Japan but Shida remains one of the most popular and talented names you have but the booking just isn’t consistent. It remains my biggest criticism of the product. As much as I love AEW, you can build compelling stories with the women if you try. Heck, bring back Dark and make it a women’s only show. Train up the talent, give them stories - you have excellent talent with lots of experience like Emi Sakura doing nothing on AEW TV and this would be the perfect slot for them.
It’s a combination of:
1. The AEW Women’s division isn’t very talented. They desperately need Thunder Rosa, Serena Deeb, and Leyla Hirsch to return.
2. It’s been divided into thirds, to accommodate the World Title, TBS Title, and ROH World Title; despite the fact that the division is already thin.
3. They aren’t given an abundance of television time to generate genuine interest in their angles.
Because they’re boring and lack any story to put it simply. I like a lot of the women on the roster, but I also like a story to follow along with during matches.
I'm just not into women's wrestling for the most part. Just find that the women aren't as fast or fluid as the guys. I love me some Willow and Chris Stat though. Other than a few bangers like Rosa and Baker or TayJay and Penelope/Bunny the matches just don't do anything for me.
Perfect example is like every Enziguri especially Sohos looks so weak it takes me out. The kicks and punches just look weak. Willow and Jamie go out there and kill people. I think Jamie, Willow, and Athena are on another level.
Personally I’m just not interested in womens wrestling it’s not as impactful or as hard hitting most of the time. It’s the match where if I need to refill my drink or take a whizz that’s usually the part of the show or if I’m at a show when I’ll check the merch table or grab food. It’s cool if you enjoy the womens wrestling then fantastic I don’t want to take that from you.
That being said I’ve enjoyed 3 runs in AEWs womens division Jade Cargill, Britt Baker, Nyla Rose. The rest just doesn’t interest me there’s saraya who’s past her best and I’m kind of over the outcast thing it just feels like if NWO were women.
Because they pull their punches so bad it looks pathetic, I’m all for suspending disbelief but this is ridiculous, if you don’t hit with actual force you shouldn’t be allowed on tv, it honestly looks pathetic
I think we are in a weird loop: Females don't get much time leads to fans being not that interested. Tony sees the number and thinks "Well, they don't draw so I am right". I think we are a few years away from females headlining All-In like in WWE Becky, Charlotte and Ronda did.
I hope that they make Rampage a female heavy show and let them breath there with Collison now being the third TV show.
I hope this doesn't come off as sexist, and just my opinion, but I think it's a combo of the women not having the best storylines/booking, but also the women's matches simply aren't as good as the men's. I want to like them but I find most of AEWs women's matches are rather sloppy and/or boring while also being predictable.
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Very much agree with this, but I also think they push talent who are better promo wise on dynamite and work rate wise on rampage and collision
Agree totally
Never noticed this but yeah, you’re completely correct.
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I think they’re waiting for Jamie Hayter to return and get the belt back.
I think this is emblematic of Tony khans biggest flaw. He can’t pivot when things go awry. Kris gets injured whens she’s being built up to dethrone Jade. Let’s have Jade hold the title for a year while we wait for Kris. Oh thunder rosa is injured let’s have an interim title and let’s wait 3 months to make the title holder official. Oh Jamie’s injures to I can take the belt and not feud with anyone until jamie gets back. No hate to him this is just a very obvious flaw that he should work to improve
Honestly I love Jade’s whole reign and hope Jamie picks up where she left off. I hear what you mean though.
heck of a point you just made
See I hear this and I agree… to a point. There is more to it though Let me put it a different way When is the last time a woman in AEW made you care about their storyline through solid promo work? That to me is a big part of the problem. No one can talk unless you are Thunder Rosa or Britt Baker. This leads to flash in the pan moments but nothing with any legs.
Hayter can talk but is never given mic time.
Agree. No disrespect to TK, but he needs to eventually appoint a veteran female to head creative/writer who can see the women's division from a deeper perspective. He can still have the final say, but there's just no way that one person can have the energy and enthusiasm for so many storylines.
Honestly, because the women don't get intriguing storylines. All the cool wrestling in the world won't replace actual stories that draw fans in. It's AEWs biggest problem. Everything is so disjointed and all over the place, it feels almost like a wrestling simulator game. Britt Baker was out there killing it for a while. They never brought anyone else up to her level after that.
Possibly. Ill watch any Jade match (squash or not), and I really liked the Nyla/Nightengale match, but the level of wrestling for most women just isn't there for me. A lot of sloppy execution and unnecessary time to set up spots that kills it for me.
>ll the cool wrestling in the world won't replace actual stories that draw fans in Not to kick a division when it's down but the cool wrestling doesn't particularly happen in that division either more often than not
Lmaooo also kinda true. Some of them have decent matches. But most of the time, it's awful
>Honestly, because the women don't get intriguing storylines. You can have "intriguing story lines" all day long but at the end of the day those people have to get into a ring and perform. VERY few of them can do that. I will still talk about the New Year Smash Street fight that Anna Jay, Tay, Bunny and Penelope Ford had as an amazing match. It was entertaining as hell but it is not the norm for the women's division. They are typically not very quick/agile, their moves have little to no impact and they botch moves that the men's division would call basic. The athleticism isn't the same and it shows. Provide a lesser product, get a lesser reaction.
Shida, Jamie, Ruby, Toni, Stat, Athena, Nyla, Deeb, a healthy Rosa, and Martinez are all good-to-great in the ring, and Britt is capable when working with any of them. That’s more than enough to run the top of the division, with Skye, Starkz, TayJay, and Julia working in the lower/midcard as they learn and improve. The live crowds can get hot for matches with any of that top level when they’re given proper time and build, and if they’re presented as consistently important I believe ratings will follow. It’s worth a shot, at least. Hell, look at all the buzz Skye Blue has gotten lately and she’s miles away from even being as good as Britt in the ring.
Ruby is anything but good-to-great.
Buddy, in the history of wrestling, it's been shown that storylines and characters drive the product. The in ring shit, is honestly secondary at this point
Definitely agree. I watch RIHO I’ll never understand her being popular. As tiny as she is she moves slower than Keith Lee, she should be racing around the ring but instead it’s like she is in practice walking thru the match. I think that each gal needs to master 5 moves, once they can do a running clothesline instead of putting the arm up waiting for someone to run into it then they can progress to something else. It’s painful watching how awful some of them attempt to execute basic moves. They need to hire Mickey James or Serena to run them through the WCW power plant routine before they shove them down our throats. I mean it’s like some of them have never watched wrestling before. Make em watch 80’s matches to learn some basics. I’d rather see an armbar for five minutes than watch 5 people stand on the outside waiting to catch someone off the top rope especially their teammates.
Perfectly said
I think it’s just a wrestling problem in general. Have any promotions had a good women’s division? Sure they have good wrestlers but that’s about it.
They’re not doing a great job of keeping her at a high level. Hayter had a really disappointing run. Should of had the OC type run. Most AEW storylines don’t matter though. Same guys are still featured each week no matter if they win their feuds or not. That won’t keep the audience engaged because nothing matters.
Yeah this has been an issue for a while, specifically with Cody and Jericho. It's like nothing any one else did ever mattered because they weren't allowed to not have a presence. I remember even thinking that Jericho still felt like Champion through most of Moxley's reign because you were more likely to feel Jericho's presence than Moxley's.
I completely agree. There's alot of rough booking ideas. The fact that you have Claudio, moxley and Danielson in a faction instead of being 3 of your main eventers is astounding to me.
They’re main eventers though lol literally all 3 have main evented multiple shows and ppvs
Yea, but the show is built around the factions instead of the individuals. Kenny Omega shouldn't be in a trios, he's the best wrestler on the planet and should be treated as such. MJF and Adam Cole are a tag team, that's a shit show.
Kenny omega just had one of the biggest singles matches in the companies history and then had a main event singles match TONIGHT Mjf/cole just had a title match and will end up in a title match in a month. Feuds need to exist besides “I’m better then you” That’s not a shit show. A shit show would be 4 years of guys having singles matches to just prove who “the best wrestler” is
Heck, not only that, they fairly often open up Dynamite or are early in the show sometimes.
Yea its mind boggling how awful the shows are set up sometimes
My thing with brit is her look. She's good on the mic but she's not believable. I'm supposed to think she can beat Kris statlander in a real fight? Of all the women on the roster kris stat, toni storm, shida, and jade Cargill are the only ones who LOOK like they can fight. Then again that's mostly an AEW problem
Are we supposed to believe Liv Morgan can beat Ronda Rousey in a fight?
Are we supposed to believe ANY woman that’s been in there can actually beat Ronda Rousey in a fight?
Are we supposed to believe Darby can actually beat larger dudes?
No. That's will forever be Darbys crutch. The reason he'll never be THE guy. He's awesome. I love Darby. The dude is amazing!! But he's soooooo soooo sooo tiny. His selling and work are believable, though. His psychology is as well. He gets his ass whopped every match and wins when he finds an opening or he just out stamina his opponent.
“Not believable.” The heck does that even mean?
It's the booking IMO. The roster is solid as hell but the story's are weak, not enough in ring promos and they don't get enough time to really showcase their talent in the ring. No one gets invested in the story when it's all told through a bunch of pre taped segments and video packages. That in ring promo Ruby cut last week felt like such a breath of fresh air, we need more of that. Also, both the OG vs Outcast storyline and waiting for Stat to come back and beat Jade had the whole division tied up in a holding pattern most of this year. That really crushed the momentum the division had coming out of 2022. I think if you just let them go out there and gave them the time to really showcase what they can do in longer matches and cut some in ring promos in front of the crowd, people would eventually take note and start getting invested. Until that risk is taken, nothing will change.
It’s because they do the absolute *bare minimum* to create interesting feuds and stories for the ladies. Imagine MJF if he never got to cut promos and instead just had random matches with random opponents, with little to no story behind them, or did the same run in angle every week on a seemingly never ending loop. How over would he be then? In the 3+ years of AEW they’ve managed to create ONE truly decent women’s rivalry, between Britt Baker and Thunder Rosa and…that’s it. Everyone else has been fed scraps. They’re given the odd street fight in which to shine and then promptly forgotten about again. Women occasionally manage to get over organically, in spite of their lacklustre booking, just through sheer ability (like Jamie Hayter) or through strength of personality (like Willow). But even then their crowd reactions aren’t capitalised on and they aren’t utilised to their full potential. And people wonder why Mercedes was reluctant to sign with AEW! Sadly, unless the women’s division is completely overhauled and booked by a totally new team, I have no hope of things improving any time soon, if ever. (ETA: I did like Shida vs. Deeb. That showed that they *can* do good rivalries that don’t revolve around Britt or the title, when they want to.)
Idk on what planet you can say Jamie wasn’t used to her full potential when they gave her the title and were giving her main events She got hurt, can’t blame Tony for that
What proper singles feud did she have in her title reign? She was bundled in with Britt into the Outcasts stuff, but she was just another person in that feud, it never revolved around *her*. In fact, Britt was arguably the centre of that feud (as usual), typically being the one left standing tall at the end of those multiple beatdown/run-in segments that seemed to end every women’s Dynamite match for weeks on end. Jamie had a couple of great matches in her reign vs. the likes of Shida and Sakura, but again, that was completely down to her (and the other ladies) and had nothing to do with any proper storytelling. They could’ve told a multi-week story of Shida feeling undervalued and supplanted in the division by Jamie, but no, they just had a match, Hayter won and that was it. And that was the story of her reign.
The main driving force behind the feud was Toni/Jamie. But the outcasts started the night after Revolution and Jamie was hurt before DON. It was started off a saraya/Jamie/ruby triple threat. There wasn’t time for a “proper” singles feud if you’re arbitrarily saying Toni/Jamie wasn’t a singles feud. It was literally her only feud before she got hurt Pretending like Jamie hasn’t been the main character of the feud is completely dishonest. Jamie had more matches then britt did against the girls
The moves have very little impact, the speed/agility is not there and there are obvious botches all the time. If they had their own show it probably wouldnt be noticeable but when you're on the same show as the top male competitors in the world ot sticks out like a sore thumb. Also the disparity between the ability of the top women and lower card is huge and its hard to suspend belief in some of it while watching. Then we get to the booking which is terrible and it compounds upon itself.
I agree I know it's so taboo these days but women's wrestling is like the WNBA to me. Just not as impactful in ring.
Because they largely do the same things each week. It’s like that for most storylines in AEW though. Wrestling isn’t as good as the men most shows.
I'll probably get downvoted but I've never seen anyone give a single shit about women's wrestling unless it was on this sub. My friends and co-workers who watch wrestling don't seem to care, ratings shows people don't seem to care, and that's just how it has been.
Yep. And I'm sorry but it's not because of the lack of *stories* people in this thread keep complaining about. It's because the vast majority of the women are just not fun to watch in the ring.
This x100000. My best friends girlfriend hangs with us for almost every wrestling pay per view and has become a fan.. even she doesn’t enjoy 99.999% of the women’s matches.. and she’s obviously not sexist lmao. I’m sorry but 80% of women’s wrestling matches are just plain out bad and inferior. Debate the wall.
Just because it's obviously true doesn't mean you have to *SAY* it!
It's the cold hard truth. To me, it's the WNBA to the NBA.
NXT's womens division a few years ago (when they still had Rhea Ripley, Io Shirai, Bianca Belair etc) was my favourite thing in the wrestling world. Womens wrestling can be amazing, it just usually isn't in AEW
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You say "obviously" but that is a very complex issue. I strongly believe its because of how women are booked.
"complex issue" ratings drop for women's matches in both aew and wwe. Sound's like a simple issue.
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Yes. The entire wwe was in a free fall in that era. Like lowest ratings in history is in 2018
At the start of Dynamite women were actually performing pretty well and ''Riho is a monster draw!'' was a meme for a while. ...But they didn't really built on it and slowly people were trained not to care over women's wrestling as for the first 6 months, the only woman who got frequent promo time was Brandi Rhodes.
The attempt to make Brandi a top star in the women’s division and form the nightmare collective, truly hobbled the division right out the gate. But it wasn’t helped by frequent injuries, limited non-Joshi top-tier talent available for signing, and the inexperience of other top female stars like Baker or Swole. Shida, Stat, Riho, Nyla, and eventually Deeb and Thunder Rosa were left to do the heavy lifting. But both Stat and Rosa were frequently injured. Kenny Omega’s attempts to use his slow-burn story style when helping to book wrestlers with limited exposure or fanbases also didn’t give the division the running start it needed. Nor did holding a mostly unseen tag-team tournament that was won by Diamante, a committed worker, and Ivelisse, who sabotaged her own AEW career, that was not followed up by a tag-team title. Instead we got the TBS belt that failed to make an impact once Jade’s streak went on too long and Tony refused to pivot away from his plans for Stat. The resulting combination of poor booking and bad luck has left the women’s division constantly saddled by with snarky or bad faith criticism, that overshadow both legitimate concerns and attempts to improve the situation.
I agree with everything you said, except i think Jades title run was a great success and kicked statlander off to the hot start she deserved.
It was great at the beginning but it overstayed its welcome in a lot of fans' eyes around the time Jade beat Athena on All Out.
>i think Jades title run was a great success and kicked statlander off to the hot start she deserved. Kris would have had a hot start regardless if Jade went 10-0 or 20-0 if Kris wouldn't have gotten injured. She didn't need to keep it to 60-0. Her wrestling skills and mic skills are low/mid AT BEST.
She didnt need to but she did and jades career is much better off now. Jade is clearly set up to be a big star. She needed reps. She got reps. She got thrown in the deep end. She delivered. Shes not the best wrestler on the roster but you cant deny that she put in the work to consistently improve and do the best she could with the squash matches she was given. She was made champion way before she was ready, but by the end of her reign she very much deserved the title.
I don't think she did deserve the title at any point during her run. She undeniably improved, and quite quickly, but that's not what should choose a champion. There should always been an argument that the champion is one of the best in their division. Jade was never at that level, and many more deserving women were fed to her in that time for no reason. I get that Jade has a great look and a presence about her, I legitimately like Jade as a feature on the show. She never should have won that championship, and her undefeated streak should have ended in the TBS title tournament.
It’s not real bud. The idea that it should be the “best” is not s legitimate argument in any possible way This is fiction, actual skill is irrelevant
Actual skill is extremely relevant. A champion should be be someone who’s matches people look forward to. It’s like a martial arts movie, if the actors don’t look like they have skill but you’re calling them a master it’s going to detract from the enjoyment. If someone doesn’t look like they are a skilled wrestler but you’re calling them a champion it’s going to detract.
I know throwing money at the problem is rarely the solution but TK's immense reservation in signing ex-WWE women's wrestlers compared to male wrestlers after WWE's massive releases in 2020 and 2021 seemed like a miss opportunity. He signed over a dozen fired male wrestlers(and not all of them stars) but I think as far the women were concerned it was just Serena and Ruby. Like my man, was Mickie James too expensive?
Isn't that also where he got Storm, Athena, Shafir, and Tay Melo? 6 performers total of varying experience and styles. I know Storm asked for her release but they still moved on her during that time. Also Mercedes Martinez while not signed immediately was working for them after her release too. As I recall Mickie wanted Impact because she wants to end things there. Kairi chose returning to Japan. Outside of the two of them and Deonna Purrazo I can't think of too many names WWE released that they would have benefitted from signing. Anyone like Sara Logan probably would have just been fed to Jade and forgotten about anyway.
Mickie had specific reasons to go to Impact if I recall correctly.
I wonder if wwe has the same problem. I Britt vs Hayter would've popped a rating, but I can't think of much else. Injuries have been a problem too. The outcast started cold, but as soon as it started to pick up Hayter got hurt
People are also complaining about the women in WWE. Right now there seems to be a rut in both promotions.
The most compelling female story right now in any major promotion is Athena's ROH run which Tony Khan is booking. The problem is that it's almost impossible to duplicate that in AEW or WWE since ROH is literally built around Athena. There is too much male talent in WWE and AEW for them to build a show around one woman.
20+ years of western wrestling either not having wonens wrestling or treating it like a sideshow with a sprinkle of womens wrestling fanbase being insanely obnoxious and turning people away from it
AEW promised us joshi as a pillar and they gave us a bunch of white chicks with boobs, instead.
At the risk of sounding like a sexist pig, women's wrestling just doesn't do it for me. It has always come across as slow and overly scripted to me. Today's ladies are much more athletic and the matches are a lot better than they used to be, but it's still just not my cup of tea.
The wrestling skill level just isn’t the same. And it’s obvious that TK doesn’t like women’s wrestling and only even has them on the roster because he has to.
Of I remember correct, it was Kenny who pushed the women's division bringing the Japanese wrestlers. So you may have a point about how TK views that division.
I’ve read a lot of similar posts but there’s a lot of talented women regardless of experience - from Athena to Deeb to Shida and Diamante to Nyla to work with the greener undercard. Removing your developmental TV is bad for the women and men and it shows.
I mean that's fine but I'm pretty over that type of match and, judging by the ratings, I'm not alone. I'm not wasting time watching training matches on tv. I think they should bring back a YouTube show for that kind of thing.
Womens division is a clear weak link in AEW right now. Why are they still doing the outcasts thing, it’s been forever
I think we may be overcomplicating things by delving into booking, star power, story lines etc. We just need to look at other sports comparisons to understand why. The WNBA receives a fraction of the viewership that the NBA does. The same applies to the majority of sports, including soccer, boxing, baseball, cricket etc. The reality is, men's divisions in sports are often higher level from a competitive perspective, and thus attract much higher viewership. Look at Omega vs Osprey recently. How often do we see women's matches of the same calibre? This is not a dig in any way, just pointing out the obvious reality.
It’s funny, I never cared about what other people besides myself were watching. I always felt like if it entertained me, that’s all that matters to me. I know it sounds extremely self-centered, but I never look at something on TV like a mark and think “gee willikers, I like this but I wonder if little Sally in Buttfucky, Kentucky will be into this Jon Moxley bloodbath.”
the women's division is **badly** booked. Impact's Knockouts division is booked better than AEW's women's division (and that's not even that bad of an insult because the knockouts division is the best booked women's division on American television. it just is. people can go on and on about how "the fed has improved", but the booking of the women in the fed HAS NOT. AT ALL.) It's always this repetitive shit that goes on forever, between the last couple months of Britt's titel reign and Jade's title reign and the Outcasts having the same match with two of the same 4 girls every week. Is this because there are too many injuries? probably, and we know this guy cannot book on the fly from 2022. oh, and the joshi talent, who were the best thing in the division for the first 2 years, were only on Dark for the most part, and now they go back to Japan every other week because they actually have things for them to do there. ...and there are apparently two women in the creative team now, and this shit STILL isn't fixed.
>Impact's Knockouts division is booked better than AEW's women's division (and that's not even that bad of an insult because the knockouts division is the best booked women's division on American television. it just is. people can go on and on about how "the fed has improved", but the booking of the women in the fed HAS NOT. AT ALL.) I think we need to stop the myth of the Impact's Knockouts division. It is something that is repeated by the IWC, who couldn't tell you what is even happening on Impact since they never watch the show. So how the hell do they know what is happening on Impact when no one watches the show? No one can tell you one great story from that division since Tessa Blanchard's run as the heavyweight champ like 4-5 years ago. Do you ever see any post on r/SquaredCircle about the Impact women? Do you ever see anyone discuss some amazing storyline they saw on Impact? No. So whatever they are doing is not attracting ANY attention. Jordynne Grace used to constantly complain that wrestling fans just didn't give a shit about what they were doing in Impact. Good booking means getting fans to give a shit about the stories and wrestlers. It means growing your business. Impact's ratings are also non-existent and are usually outside the top 150 for their night. They usually average around 80-90k. Now you can say, well it's AXS TV and no one can find it. That is true, but Impact was drawing 180k when they first were on AXS TV a few years ago. So that audience watched before and left. So this "great" Impact booking of the women is not drawing anyone to Impact or making them money. They are not creating any wrestlers that people care about. And that is all that matters in wrestling. Is there any female wrestler that is making people watch Impact? No, and the numbers back that up. Funny thing is the head writer of Impact, Jimmy Jacobs, now works for AEW. So the guy writing all these great storylines for the Impact women, that no one can even name or tell you about, is now in AEW.
I don't give a shit about ratings. I don't give a shit about money. The fed draws everybody and they SUCK. I'm talking about what doesn't annoy me when i watch it. Mickie James's last rodeo didn't annoy me when i watched it....too bad she got injured.
They've done a poor job with the women so the fans don't care
They're promoted poorly plus the in ring is often lacking
The complete lack of care of the division, not only a lack of matches but stories or characters. TK seems to not care One of the best wrestlers from Stardom Utami Hayashishita is currently in the US, and CGW got her on a show, but it doesn't seem AEW has tried. AEW has had every chance to build a solid division, but they just don't put in the effort.
Having someone from Stardom in a 1-off show doesn't build your division. It's great for drawing money from fans already aware of the wrestler or product which is why Forbidden Door is a huge money maker. You mentioned stories and character, you can't tell that with someone just temporarily here, and if you can fans will be disappointed when she disappears back to Japan.
Shitty to no storylines
I'm shocked women's wrestling is still so bad (most of the time), in spite of the improved athleticism. AJPW had great female wrestling in the 80s/90s. Generalizing of course, but women are more flexible (helpful with making submissions look great) and better dancers (choreography), and gymnast (high flying) not sure why it doesn't translate in the ring. I think it might be their physicality is lacking, striking always looks horrible to me. I think they try to mimic US mens wrestling when they should be working on their own unique style or more lucha.
The women in aew on average are just not that good compared to the men and that's cause alot of the men are some of the greatest in the world at working matches and Half the women's roster just started wrestling sometime within the last 5 years or so. This makes the matches take a massive dip in quality compared to their male counterparts. Add in that aew's programming in general is already kinda wonky in how it presents alot of its talent (ricky starks being in a feud with jay white and juice Robinson and NOT cutting a promo for example), so the women who can talk don't get to, women in general being shown nothing but apathy by tk, and a multitude of key figures getting injured at the worst possible times, and this all became a perfect storm that imploded the women's division multiple times now
lower quality matches, tonight you had Britt and Ruby, two of the better in ring performers and it was still a very choppy match with important moves missed and instances where they're unnaturally waiting for each other.
Matches like ruby v Britt. Again. Clunky, slow. Willow and Athena should slap though.
I have been called sexistic for stating this, which I find unfair because it's a matter of personal preference, but women's wrestling just doesn't do it for me. I don't like to watch women fight or pretending to fight. I assume that I'm not the only one.
Wrestlers don't need to know how to kick someone's ass. They just need to LOOK like they can kick someone's ass. Britt doesn't have that look. She's charming as hell, though
The outcast story sucks, and with Hayter’s injury it’s stuck in purgatory until she comes back because TK can’t pivot. Beyond that, they need more time. We need more Riho, Shida, Rose, Tay Conti when she’s back, etc. Not too long ago women were main eventing Dynamite. It can be done.
The same reason no one watches the WNBA. For the most part guys just don't care about women's sports
How *dare* you! Honesty? On the *internet*?!
False
100% true.
Maybe like 10% true.
You missed a zero
Downvote if you want but it’s the same reason people don’t watch women’s sports as much as the men: the athleticism isn’t the same and leads to a less entertaining product. Very rarely will a women’s feud get to a level where people want to watch a match regardless of the entertainment value within it, so it will just never be as popular.
Bad booking and bad matches. Some of their women’s wrestlers are just not up to standards. Not to mention the good ones hardly ever wrestle. Riho, Shida, Bunny, always fucking deliver but I feel like they’re never on there.
It’s funny reading all of the excuses. The fact is people just don’t care about women’s wrestling. They just don’t. Just like the WNBA. Even lingerie football couldn’t draw a dime. Is anybody really surprised that the biggest women wrestling stars are women who are not wrestlers? Sable, Sunny, Torrie, etc. It is what it is. Stop making up excuses.
Next you'll be saying the emperor isn't wearing any clothes!
I have no idea who Taya Valkrye, Lady Frost, Willow Nightingale etc are because I know nothing about them besides some people seemed to like them on promotions nobody watches and AEW doesn't fill in the blanks.
All these people making idiotic comments about “people dont like women’s wrestling” clearly forgot that year and a half when Becky Lynch was the most popular wrestler in the world (of ANY gender). People care about what you give them a reason to care about. TK has never shown much interest in building up his women’s division with good storylines and lots of exposure. Ive still NEVER seen a TV episode with more than one women’s match.
There were like 2 episodes that had a second womens match. It was a squash.
All the added drama and bullying towards Rosa certainly soured my view of certain women talent. Especially when the booking puts so much emphasis on the likes of The Outcasts and DMD. The storyline whilst having talented people involved has meandered in the least interesting way possible. And without other female talent on the card for a Dynamite you see a really for me at least uninteresting angle that has dragged on for way too long.
The outcasts have been a HUGE disappointment for me. It should have been this giant war leading to a women blood and guts match. But instead it just limps along never going anywhere.
I don’t think you can attribute it to the talent or the booking, because it’s not just a problem in AEW. WWE viewership has plummeted for women’s matches weekly for several years now. AEWs audience skews much more male, and it just doesn’t seem like men are as invested in the women’s matches.
Tony needs to give the women's division to someone who can book it better.
[удалено]
Yeah show placement is a big reason, that last half seems like it's always losing viewers no matter who is there usually and they continue to drop into the main event. Some main events have done ok though. Seems like when they have aired earlier in the show they have performed fine. I think the main story has run so long without progression also hurts, but that's not limited to women though.
It’s kind of hard to care about the womens division or be as interested in it as the men’s when they get 3 matches o we 5 hours now of television and that doesn’t include ROH. We get 1 match per show, maybe a backstage, on stage or in ring interview/promo which usually gets interrupted and what I think they consider they’re biggest story with the women is the Outcasts and that is the same repetitive stuff, they beat up on someone and either someone comes to help and they get beaten down too or a couple of them come down then they run away, nothing has progressed at all. Skye Blue, Willow, Hikaru Shida, Riho and Britt should all be storming the ring for each others matches. Bully Ray said it perfectly, if you’re a face getting beat down and no one comes out to help, who really is your friend and why don’t they come out? That’s not the exact quote but it was something along those lines.
I feel like AEW needs to make the women's roster bigger. I was watching Statlanders match last Collision episode. And.... it just felt... kinda stale. You can even tell by the crowd's reaction. Statlander just beat Jade's streak. It should be a big deal...but, just feels like AEW is not putting the effort that WWE is doing for their women's division.
They’re usually put in a poor cooldown time slot before the main event and they tend to get less actual storyline build to make the fans care. AEW has to do the stuff like we’re seeing tonight with vignettes, pretaped activites, backstage interactions, or just promos with the women.
Bad booking. Lack of star power.
The big problem with the women’s division is outside the two belts, the rest of the division feels inconsequential. We haven’t been given a substantial storyline in the division that didn’t have a title around it. It’s just the champion and the revolving door of who’s next in line to challenge for it that gets any big attention given to it, and once they’re no longer challenging they just fall by the wayside.
It's likely a combination of several factors. American pro wrestling is largely based on a morality axis for drama. Women don't get as many stories or TV time because there are fewer women than men performers. So their stories are simpler, shorter. Their promo time is less, their angles are weaker, their ring time is less. And there you have a self-fulfilling prophecy of mediocrity. People think this or that female performer is cool. Or cuts a figure as they say in the entertainment industry. But that doesn't mean they really want to listen to their promos or watch a 45-minute match with Willow and Serena Deeb. The overlap of marks that think Riho is so awesome is pretty small compared to the general audience that see a 90 lbs woman with doilies on her wrists & wearing a frilly dress. And she can't speak English. Realistically, the audience interested in that content is a subset of an already small niche audience wanting to see Jon Moxley stabbed by chopsticks. It's a niche of niche. Whether or not that is fashionable to admit on today's internet wrestling mark-centric fan base. AEW barely get 900k viewers for their flagship. And they ain't interested in Jamie Hayter vs. Ruby Soho. You think there are 2-3million potential viewers out there that just need to see more Emi Sakura or Madison Rayne to change their minds? Get realistic.
Women in sports (and other workplaces too) are still being underestimated by a large part of the population. Some fans probably boycott on purpose because they are bigoted. Either because they have internalized certain beliefs about gender roles or because they are black pilled or whatever else. These stuff don't change from day to day regardless of the effort that has been put on recently by all the promotions. Wrestling doesn't take place in a bubble. Politics and culture affect it a lot.
Because theyre not very good:(
This might be a bit controversial, but I have always found the women's matches a bit sloppy and not perfectly time. In some cases, they're engaging. Other times, it looks slow because they look like they have to prepare their moves. If I get downvoted for this, then go ahead.
Why isn't women soccer as popular as male? Why isn't WNBA as popular as the NBA? It's because they have a low number of female fan. Women don't really watch Pro Wrestling. The ones that do are far and few. The small number of female wrestling fans don't even watch the women. ... now the real question is why aren't male pornstarts paid as much as the female ones?
>Why isn't women soccer as popular as male? Maybe it's not in the US (ironic given that USWNT is the most successful national football team in the women's game), but over here in Europe women's football has been experiencing a large boom in popularity as of late. Last year's European championship has [broken records](https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/37631528/record-breaking-2022-women-euro-watched-365-million-globally) both in crowd attendance and in TV viewership, and this year even the women's champions league final has managed to sell out [for the first time ever](https://theathletic.com/4523336/2023/05/16/womens-champions-league-final-sold-out/)! But I digress.
There might be a growing interrest, bur are you kidding me? Womens soccer is NOWHERE near the popularity of mens in Europe. A few games with high attendence won‘t change that. Look at the average numbers of league attandence and viewers in Europe.
Okay but we're talking about AEW which is an American promotion. Americans aren't into female sports
Don’t the women’s soccer matches here in the states draw better than the men’s?
No one's cares about soccer in the US!! I have friends that are into soccer and it's just weird. Here in America we cheer for teams because we have a connection to the city. Cheering for a city in a country that you've never even been too os odd to begin with. It's 4th most loved sport. Hockey is more popular
this is a weird take. lots of people here in america cheer for sports teams centered in places they aren't from. do you think every yankees fan has been to nyc or every pats fan to boston? what about in college sports, do you assume people only cheer for schools they've attended? soccer is the most popular sport on the global level, and even though it's not huge in the u.s. it is still growing its viewership year over year. there are plenty of people that care about soccer and that like watching it. they aren't weird for liking it as a sport anymore than someone is weird for liking football or baseball or pro wrestling. just because you don't like it doesn't mean no one else does.
This all day
It's a combination of the women not getting interesting stories and audience apathy towards women wrestlers in general. Alot the super vocal support the women get online like on Twitter has not translated to real life.
People dont want to hear this but They’re just boring. The best womens division ive seen was the knockouts in TNA, that shit was one of the better parts if the show, they just had so many colorful characters and stories.
I would also say Lucha Underground's women's division was great. But they had actual character development and matches that were high stakes and more than 1 match per episode. I watched the NWA Powerr PPV last year (or the year before) and the surprising thing was some of the best matches featured women who were AEW talent or regularly appeared on AEW (Leyla Hirsch, Red Velvet and Kylynn King). I loved Kylynn King but god am I glad she got out of AEW and seems to be doing great in TNA. I am one of those rare women who grew up watching wrestling l, got my husband into wrestling and watch women sports. I must be a unicorn or something.
Because women's wrestling is boring. There are very, very, and I mean very few female wrestlers who are entertaining. I'll give credit where credit is due and say that Rhea Ripley is one of those women.
TK doesn’t book compelling matches or build the women up at all. The only women to get over are the ones who do it all themselves. They also put the match in the dead zone (before the main event) and the crowd is either going to the bathroom or folks at home are probably taking care of things to not miss the main event. There’s no effort. No build. And it’s just sad at this point.
Because wrestling, especially the WWE, had conditioned fans for so many years that women matches are the "toilet break" of the show. They were viewed less important than all the other stuff on the show, and I think women's wrestling has always struggled to break away from that stigma that so many wrestling fans were conditioned to believe. How do you rectify women's wrestling and make it seem just as important as men's wrestling? Feature them more on television. Give them meaningful stories that wrestling fans can sink their teeth into and enjoy. Feature them in Blood & Guts matches and Street Fights. It's a massive work in progress, but there has been effort made into making women's wrestling more important.
More TV time to the worst wrestlers on the show just drags your show down.
It's controversial and I know most people will say it's not true... And I am going to get heat for it but... Even after the Women's Revolution in wrestling, a good portion of fans still want hot ones over talented ones. And that's with every wrestling promotion not just WWE. So when a women'd match come featuring a women they don't necessarily see as "good looking" they change the channel/Skip it. It's the fault of fans mindset, the women themselves are doing their best to put on the best matches possible.
They suck
I think it’s more because the women’s matches are throwaway. And what I mean is it’s just random matches that don’t impact storylines or feuds. Like currently, not a single woman has a storyline in aew. Stat is tbs champ without a feud, Toni is world champ without a feud. No other female has a feud, angle or promo time. It’s hard to get ppl to tune into a match that has zero impact.
They're usually booked in the dead zone right before the main event. I think whatever they put in that spot always has a drop, so TK books the women's match their since they're lowest on his priority list.
It’s a lot of things wrong that really needs to be addressed. Really don’t know how many views they lost but just going by what I see. People are custom to what they see most of the time. Like a cast or whatever I been arguing that aew needs some type of split brand split even if it’s an soft one. Also I feel aew needs highlight the main stars way more. When Jamie wasn’t hurt 8 out of 10 she should be on every dynamite even if was a match,tag,on commentary or even a manger if she showing signs she has a good fan base that’s goin stick keep her gulled on tv,it’s no damn reason why Athena is RoH and jade she has a great following, I love her but even with her wrestling being iffy at times and maybe reasons people might tune off, i barely seen any people talk about her promo game. Less wresting and showing more of character side. I’m just using these examples not even getting to Britt or thunder. Plus you need more intriguing storylines for the women.
Lack of investment from AEW Creative.. The talent is there. They just need to be allowed to be as gritty and bloody as the men are instead of being treated like a caricature of what the men do
1: People who in general hate women 2: Women not getting proper storylines 3: Women overall (IN MY OPINION) being worse than the men. Not based on gender but their best star (Jamie Hayter) isn't comparable to the best men's star (Kenny Omega). They tend to not deliver as often, although again this is a booking issue. There are a lot of great women's talents, but they don't have as much time to shine as the men do. 4: The matches being so short that nobody cares and they go for a piss break 5: The placement usually never being important and therefore skippable
Because they don't have many women in AEW who can actually wrassle. Thst brit v ruby match tonight, for example. It was slow and sloppy the whole way through.
The problem, two champions that never should have been champions and not pushing the right talent. Neither Britt Baker or Jade Cargill deserved the titles they had. They are the worst the woman's roster has to offer and were given title runs that were pretty much exactly the same. Both won nefariously and kept the title due to being given matches against the jobber that never stood a chance. Why, simply because they could not pull off a match against anyone with even a little talent. Jades run only lasted as long as it did because Statlander was hurt and bakers reign was only pushed until her boyfriend Adam Cole got signed. Don't believe me about Baker, go back and watch her treatment before Cole signed and after, her push died and the minute he signed Recently, woman like Skye Blue and others that are far more talented are getting some time but until the current storyline has run it's course, there will still be road blocks and matches no one wants to see TK is a real genius for the most part but when it comes to the woman's side of things, who ever is helping him is either clueless too or they just don't have faith in the current woman's roster. What could hell is that a few who have been injured and out may be back sooner than later and they could help a ton
Something in the water
Because outside of a few simps NOONE GIVES A FUCK ABUUT WOMENS WRESTLING
Most of women’s wrestling fans are gay men or women and a lot us exist it’s just aew appeals to a more male audience and doesn’t make the effort to appeal to this audience
Viewers have been conditioned over decades to believe women's wrestling is a bathroom break, and AEW has unfortunately fed that perception through their booking.
Boring and uncoordinated
Because women’s wrestling is awful. I don’t care what company it is, it’s always one gigantic piss break.
They just aren't as good of athletes. And their impacts just aren't as hard. Downvote me all you want, but it's true. Women's matches are like 50-75% of the intensity of the men's. And there is nothing wrong with that. They are just built differently. But many people take the opportunity of a less aggressive match to have a piss break.
AEW provides no reason to give a shit. That Statlander/Frost match really stunk on top of it.
Well lets be honest here. 1. Most of the female wrestlers are botch machines. 2. They don't perform to the level of their male counterparts in a lot of situations. 3. There is no consistent storytelling what so ever. 4. Jade has 50 absolutely terrible squash matches in a row, and her defenses were against jobbers who didn't help her look even half decent. And having that forced down your throat ruins the taste of female wrestling. 5. The Outcasts are a shitty low budget knock off of NWO.
Lol, I’ve never given a fuck about a quarter hour as a fan😂
One problem is they don’t hype it up as much as some unknown (in the USA) Japanese wrestler. There are plenty of talented female wrestlers, but they are not given enough time or storylines or enthusiasm from announcers.
Historically, women have been handcuffed in their matches. People have been conditioned to consider women’s matches the “bathroom break” not realizing that the women in AEW are legit badasses in the ring. You really have to blame the brainwashing that took place prior to AEW.
The booking is bad, and some of the women could probably just use a bit more ring time. I don't really see it as being a fault of the wrestlers themselves. Their booking is inconsistent to put it nicely, and we really just haven't been given much to care about.
It's because the women in AEW, for the most part, have no real direction as far as how they're being built. The women are booked as if Tony and his writing staff just want to get their matches out of the way but also don't want to stoop as low as the Divas era. I heavily dislike AEW, but there's still a part of me that's holding out hope that, if they got their shit together, they could put on a genuinely good show, top to bottom. There's more to the women's division than Britt Baker.
The fact that they cut to break with no picture-in-picture during every women’s match, no matter the show probably doesn’t help.
What is the intriguing storyline going on with women? They treat women as set dressing. It's like there's a quota that needs to be filled. Nothing more, nothing less. What are they doing to make people care about any of these women?
I was at forbidden door and as soon as the women’s match happened with Toni storm everyone went to the washroom and the lineup was almost around the arena lol
The talent is there, but they aren't giving compelling stories or opportunities to get their characters over in a meaningful way. Most of the feuds feel disjointed and uninspired, and the title programs are often nothing more than random open challenges or booked on the fly. I think mediocre storytelling is a problem with AEW as a whole at the moment, but the women get it worse than the dudes.
People were high on Baker when she started gaining momentum as a heel followed by her championship run. She got significant promo time and managed to get herself over. Compelling stories are essential, but giving more women opportunities to connect with viewers by letting us know who they are, what their ambitions are, etc. could be a good start. Skye Blue is gaining momentum as a babyface, but we haven't even seen a video package that adds some layers to her character.
I look at Dynamite ratings every week and it's rare to see a quarter with growth. It's a concern of mine since I really like the product. Not sure the women are drawing any worse then the men unless you have some data to back it up.
Honestly because in comparison to WWE, AEWs roster is very green in the ring. That and I feel the storytelling is so spastic that no one has any attachment to any characters. Their women’s division is in dire straits
Because the division isn’t properly booked and no one gives a shit
Bad storylines, no mid-card so every finish is telegraphed. Almost no character development whatsoever so no one gives a fuck about anyone.
It’s kinda the same issue with most American wrestling company’s. They don’t give the women enough time to build characters or a solid story, and the unpopular opinion women wrestling just isn’t all that popular in the states unless is Unfathomably horny dudes.
This is one of the only wins I’d ever give to WWE and that (only in the past decade of course) their women’s matches and storyline’s have been on point. Hope AEW can smash them on that front too eventually
I can understand if the women's devision isn't your preference (like some people don't like big-men) but to turn the channel when it's a women's match seems weird to me. I have been really enjoying the Outkasts storyline.
all this women's division needs is AJ and Priscilla. Delete anyone you want from the mix. You put either of those two on and I'm not changing the channel.
They aren't that good. I try to give them a chance in both places but they just aren't good for the most part. You have your good ones for sure. But for the most part the matches just aren't fun to me anyway.
To be clear: I enjoy Women's wrestling. I want to see more Nyla, Shida, Deeb etc. But...the majority of people arent there to watch women's sports period. Women's wrestling (not Sable and the like) have only drawn for a total of a year (and not a year straight) in the past 30 years in North America. Becky, and then Sasha & Bailey, drew for brief amounts of time. There was a time when Baker and Cargill managed to maintain viewers or slightly improve. That time is over for all the people mentioned. People can say storylines, sure that's part of it. But IMHO, it's simply a fact that North American audiences don't support women's sports, consistently, in any great numbers. So it's a big, unfair, up hill battle.
Because the roster is shallow, there's no upward trajectory of long time wrestlers like Anna Jay, Penelope Ford, The Bunny, Julia Hart, etc. Some of these are for obvious out of ring reasons, like Tay Conti pregnancy and Penelope's situation, but they had PLENTY of time before that. Aside from a short-lived Skye Blue shocking upset, it's just been the Britt & Jade show for the better part of 2 years. Even Jamie Hayter's entire title Reign was kind of boring because it was so tied into Britt.. The long Statlander absences haven't helped either... Then you also have the fact that it's more legit pro wrestling than it was in the Diva days when it was about sex rather than the sport. Not saying it's a change for the worse because it's definitely more entertaining and respectful now, but we all know sex sells and coomers gonna coom.
Because AEW doesn’t have a proper training facility and the quality of every match is usually lower.
They've given the women very few story lines. The ones they do give them get drug on forever. They don't ever change the main event scene from being Britt and someone. Even when Hayter was champion, they turned the focus to Britt. They kept the title on Jade way too long because they were just waiting on Statlander. It basically took one title out of the scene for a very long time. There is a large chunk of the roster who just randomly get thrown into matches, never featured or given promos, and give me no reason to invest. The announce team doesn't even feel the same for the women's matches. It seems like they are just going through the motions. It also feels like this is the time they push a ton of advertisements for other shows, matches later that night, etc...
Don't even REALLY know what you're talking about. If we watching the show, we're watching
Do they have a story or is just random matches with no purpose?
Because TK doesn't care about women's wrestling, and since he doesn't care, the fans don't care. The division is about half good, half shitters as well.
If you insist that women 99% of the time only get one match on your main show people won’t care. You can’t condition fans that way. Especially if you don’t allow the division to grow beyond either Britt Baker or Outcasts. There’s a lot of talented women not being booked thanks to the loss of Dark/Elevation. Not everyone tunes into ROH either. When was the last time Athena was on Dynamite? I know she does a lot of work in Japan but Shida remains one of the most popular and talented names you have but the booking just isn’t consistent. It remains my biggest criticism of the product. As much as I love AEW, you can build compelling stories with the women if you try. Heck, bring back Dark and make it a women’s only show. Train up the talent, give them stories - you have excellent talent with lots of experience like Emi Sakura doing nothing on AEW TV and this would be the perfect slot for them.
It’s a combination of: 1. The AEW Women’s division isn’t very talented. They desperately need Thunder Rosa, Serena Deeb, and Leyla Hirsch to return. 2. It’s been divided into thirds, to accommodate the World Title, TBS Title, and ROH World Title; despite the fact that the division is already thin. 3. They aren’t given an abundance of television time to generate genuine interest in their angles.
Misogyny. Plenty of knuckle-dragging, mouth-breather "fans."
Because they’re boring and lack any story to put it simply. I like a lot of the women on the roster, but I also like a story to follow along with during matches.
I'm just not into women's wrestling for the most part. Just find that the women aren't as fast or fluid as the guys. I love me some Willow and Chris Stat though. Other than a few bangers like Rosa and Baker or TayJay and Penelope/Bunny the matches just don't do anything for me. Perfect example is like every Enziguri especially Sohos looks so weak it takes me out. The kicks and punches just look weak. Willow and Jamie go out there and kill people. I think Jamie, Willow, and Athena are on another level.
Personally I’m just not interested in womens wrestling it’s not as impactful or as hard hitting most of the time. It’s the match where if I need to refill my drink or take a whizz that’s usually the part of the show or if I’m at a show when I’ll check the merch table or grab food. It’s cool if you enjoy the womens wrestling then fantastic I don’t want to take that from you. That being said I’ve enjoyed 3 runs in AEWs womens division Jade Cargill, Britt Baker, Nyla Rose. The rest just doesn’t interest me there’s saraya who’s past her best and I’m kind of over the outcast thing it just feels like if NWO were women.
Because they pull their punches so bad it looks pathetic, I’m all for suspending disbelief but this is ridiculous, if you don’t hit with actual force you shouldn’t be allowed on tv, it honestly looks pathetic
I think we are in a weird loop: Females don't get much time leads to fans being not that interested. Tony sees the number and thinks "Well, they don't draw so I am right". I think we are a few years away from females headlining All-In like in WWE Becky, Charlotte and Ronda did. I hope that they make Rampage a female heavy show and let them breath there with Collison now being the third TV show.
I hope this doesn't come off as sexist, and just my opinion, but I think it's a combo of the women not having the best storylines/booking, but also the women's matches simply aren't as good as the men's. I want to like them but I find most of AEWs women's matches are rather sloppy and/or boring while also being predictable.